Solar System NES

June 27, 2005, 21:46

The Story

Astronomers and amateur star watchers can still tell you where Sol is, and some children, if in the proper hemisphere, can vaguely point out the general section of the sky where our old ancestral birthing ground lies, see?, it’s over there, I think, at The Shoveler’s hand, or is it his foot? But anyway, look, momma, I can find the Dead Tree, and Sheaffur’muun is nearly full…Daddy’s there? Yes dear, Daddy’s up there working, and he’ll be coming home, but not yet. Soon now, you wait.
But children and adults alike hold little concern for old Earth, and most have learned nothing about its history except for an obligatory few minutes worth of ambiguous instruction in grade school about our origins. Even historians and enthusiasts of esoterica know little about that far off place--too much of our own history has passed to let us feel connected to that place anymore. Too many calamities have whittled away our store of knowledge of that place-before-here and those same trials have washed away our desire to preserve that knowledge. The only information about the old Sol System that concerns us today is,
Will its inhabitants try to exterminate us again?
The question rots in the back of our minds as we hunt for answers in our past and grapple with the future--the future of our system, Veritas, The Truth of Our Age--for our existence.

The Prehistory

Interstellar space faring is no easy matter. The financial expenses are prohibitive, the technological necessities are significant, the logistical requirements are immense, the political maneuvering is…hardly surprising, the risks to the would be travelers are severe, the psychological costs are frightening…but in the infancy of humankind’s space faring, the will to explore in person, to start off fresh and at the same time preserve the most cherished elements of humanity was stronger than pragmatism.
The telescopes peered into the muddy heavens, long eyes capturing the minute wobbles of giants, and their groundling masters diligently recorded arcs and periods and felt their way into the sky. The biggest gamble was the not the technical parameters of such a star-faring mission, but the astronomy itself, a fact that the involved mathematicians were well aware of. Some flashed brief meekly confident grins and flicked their eyes in concern, some were somber, others loud and enthused, some shrugged innocently. No one would actually see the planets until the colony ship entered orbit.
Size, climate, composition, number of moons, density, atmospheric pressure---all were “known” constants, products of years of human and supercomputer analysis and computation, categorized into precise levels of detail--if you trusted an entire system of data generated completely by not-well-understood quantum processes based upon imperfect relativistic formulae working on data that consisted of an occasional few pixels variation in an image of an amorphous 2-D blob.
But the mathematicians and their supercomputers were right, and it did work, as the colonists were relieved to find out. After an eighty (standard) year journey, the first ship arrived in orbit around a planet where man’s prefab machines and invasive preparatory lichens and bacteria and Quickferns and ghastly beefed up earthworms had already been at work for decades. The world they arrived above really could be made a home, and other planets had potential as well. Man’s knowledge had indeed provided the truth. The minds of old troubled Sol dug into the rock of Dignity, third planet from the star known as Veritas, and made themselves a home.

The Past

More supply ships arrived and the colonists that financed them followed. The new inhabitants of Veritas System were not only the rebellious and adventurous--People came for every different reason imaginable. There were those who wished to be the vanguard of human civilization; those who wished to return to a simpler or more rugged life; those that chased spiritual contemplation; those who could not preserve their conservative traditions in the dynamic, feral culture of crowded, aggressive, cosmopolitan, freakish earth; those who saw new opportunities to take advantage of their fellow humans in an exotic and promising locale. Despite their differences, these groups generally got along and often integrated; the abundant opportunity and challenge this system provided kept conflict manageable and there was rarely more than criminal violence.
Each of the inhabited planets of course developed distinct cultures, but in many ways when each new batch of colonists awoke from the Sleep they found that they had arrived at a society confronted with and blessed with attributes akin to something out of earth’s past. While Veritas advanced steadily and linearly, Earth changed in her normal fashion: so quickly and contradictorily that no one could convincingly determine whether they were going forwards or backwards. Each wave of arrivals increasingly reflected the planet they fled from by the values and institutions that they adopted, and by their increasing “traditionalism”...Except for the travelers on the last colony ship, strange men who prayed to strange gods and kept to themselves and their own seemingly ambiguous internecine rivalries.
As distant as the societies of Veritas were from Earth in space and custom, they soon resembled more closely the Earth of only a few generations previous more closely than Earth itself did. Periodic probe broadcasts detailed the amazing changes in technology, society, biology, and morality that the mother planet was undergoing. One other human colony world had been founded, but no further efforts had been taken: More wealth was to be found in the interiors of Sol’s own planets, the atmospheres of her own gas giants, and the outer reaches of the Sun’s own corona than in the distant niches of interstellar space. They had made contact with a few alien species or artifacts of one’s past existence; each had reached the same conclusion about the unviable nature of interstellar settlement.
Earth lost interest in her off-system colonies. The last convoluted broadcasts spoke feverishly of the surreal convulsions of a twisted planet. Then the broadcasts finally ceased, inexplicably.
In their place arrived the missiles. In the days preceding the first wave of destruction, the astronomers confirmed what a stunned population already suspected: The origin of the missiles was Sol system. Their targets were the inhabited planets of Veritas system.
The missiles could not be destroyed--a few succumbed to primitive countermeasures, but not enough.
The missiles could not be outsmarted. They found every exposed city; their warheads disrupted or destroyed every infrastructure and industrial network. They wrecked or ruined every orbital terraformer, they sensed the presence of underground facilities and shook the vaults of a cowering humanity. Ruin was not enough. Some of the missiles contained powerful strains of biological contaminants which wrought havoc upon the fragile biospheres. Other unfurled huge sails of thin reflective film to starve certain areas of light or focus deadly wavelengths on others. We were but ants to the malignant children of earth.
The missiles could only be weathered. New ones arrived for months and proclaimed their cold fury in explosions and pestilences across the landscape. The last of the insidious invaders were destroyed in their orbits by a grievously wounded humanity years after their arrival.
All of the societies, their populations massacred, infrastructure blasted away, and climates deteriorating, teetered on the brink of extinction. Some lost that fight. There still remain some now remote places where battered doors lie ajar in the ruins of once great cities and CO2 frost creeps into dark rooms and settles on the lips and eyes of their last inhabitants.
For a century we have struggled to regain what was lost to us. Now it is your turn to lead our people to new depths and heights.

Planet: Veritas II “Fury”Terrain Types (most to least): Regolith and Rocky, fissures.Environmental Cost Modifier: +35%Interests:Notes: Light atmosphere of heavier gases. Fissures, many of which are quite large, long, and deep, cover large portions of the planet. Possibly some volcanic activity that is now just dormant. Pretty inhospitable place. Slow rotation, light side has very high temperatures, dark side very low temperatures. Small/medium planet.1 Minor Moon.ECM: +50%Interests

Planet: Veritas VII “Magnanimity”Terrain Types (most to least): Mesolithic/rocky, moltenEnvironmental Cost Modifier: +65%Interests:Notes: Former Gas Giant. Solid core and an atmosphere, but doesn’t qualify as a gas giant, because in a (geologically) recent cataclysmic impact with another moon or planetary body most of the atmosphere was stripped away. Now directly under the surface and even much of the surface itself is molten, and the planet is still noticeably misshapen and has a fairly irregular orbit. This planet is almost primordial, its moons have weird orbits.1 Major Volcanic Moon, viable atmosphere“Mettle” (tidal forces keep this moon volcanically active)ECM: +10%Interests1 Major Ice moon , viable atmosphere“Pitch”ECM: +15%Interests20 Minor Moons, (ECM +55%) 0 Claimed

SMALLER ASTEROID BELT

Planet: Veritas VIII “Restless”Terrain Types (most to least): Gas GiantEnvironmental Cost Modifier:+80% in the atmosphere itself, but decreases ECM of orbiting moons by 7% (already taken into account)Interests:Notes: Extreme orbital tilt. Only the regions very close to the equator pass through night and day. The interaction of light and dark sides cause extreme atmospheric weather conditions. The upper atmosphere extends very far out from the planet in both a general thin haze as well as occasional gushers, storm events that can last months or centuries, that shoot denser matter up in fountains hundreds of km high before they fall back to the atmosphere. In the lower atmosphere, currents of cold liquids as well as warm gases compressed under high pressures into liquids circulate the globe.1 Major ice moon“St. Armory”ECM: +35%InterestsMajor rocky moon 1“Havlell”ECM: +40%InterestsMajor rocky moon 2“Zollverein”ECM: +40%InterestsMajor rocky moon 3“Crensey”ECM: +40%Interests24 minor moons None claimed

Planet: Veritas X “Brazen”Terrain Types (most to least): ice, slush, regolith, dirt, gas, liquid.Environmental Cost Modifier: +65%Interests:Notes: This small planet has an irregular orbit that takes it out into the outer recesses of the system as well as closer in to the star, on the inside of “Challenge’s” orbit. It’s not massive enough to retain much of a gas envelope, although the atmosphere does get thicker when its orbit brings it in closer to the star. Only elements and chemicals with low melting points are present in liquid form, even in the “warm” part of the year most everything stays frozen, although a tiny amount of trapped heat does make a little bit of slush. 3 Minor Moons none claimed

Planet: Veritas XI “Mercy”Terrain Types (most to least): ice regolithEnvironmental Cost Modifier: +65%Interests:Notes: This planet was named mercy because that’s what you’d need to be granted in abundant quantity to live there. Out here, Veritas is just another star. The only reason the tiny “Mercy” is still trapped in Veritas’ feeble gravity well is because it has such a slow orbital velocity--it takes millennia to complete one orbital revolution. It is composed of rock hard ice and dust.

Planet: Generic small inner system moon/asteroidTerrain Types (most to least): Rocky/lith, metal, or iceEnvironmental Cost Modifier: +50%Interests:Notes: Small bodies within or mostly within the orbit of Veritas VII, “Magnanimity”. It is somewhat easier to reduce the Enviro Cost Modifier on very small moons and asteroids than it is on larger bodies (essentially turn the entire thing into a habitat).

Planet: Generic small outer system moon/asteroidTerrain Types (most to least): Rocky/lith, metal, or iceEnvironmental Cost Modifier:+55%Interests:Notes: Small bodies around, outside of, or mostly outside of the orbit of “Magnanimity”. It is somewhat easier to reduce the Enviro Cost Modifier on very small moons and asteroids than it is on larger bodies (essentially turn the entire thing into a habitat).

Ruler: General Ludd
Location: Honour
Nation: Asgard Federation
Capitol City: Asgard
Typical physique: Hardy, pale skinned.
Priorities: Mechanics and the quality and durability there of.
Opposed to: Robotics, Automation
Cities: Single large city with multiple access points to the surface. Densely populated, with structures that burrow into the earth more than they rise into the sky, often acompanied by subterranean streets and passageways. Geothermal energy is the prefered method of heating and generating electricity followed by nuclear and then synethetic gases.
Biggest Industry: Mining, usually done by large human-driven machines.
Military: Relatively small standing army, but a strong militia culture. Small hand-held flamethrowers and larger incinerators are standard weapons - both for their offensive purposes and their practical use in melting ice and snow (a frequent problem on Veratis 5).
Society: The government is centralized and led by elected officials and the economy is planned by various city commitees which ensure that the needs of their citizens are met.
Culture: Hardworking and minimalist, an appretiation for craftsmenship and solidarity.
Most food is grown in greenhouses on the surface of the planet and while meat is eaten is is comparitevly rare due to the difficulty in raising livestock in Viratis 5's climate.

Ruler: appleciders
Location: Uhtuhnt, (sattelite of Honour)
Nation: Republic of Uhtunht
Capital City: Novy Kosmograd
In favor of: Computers, robotics, automation, mathematics, isolationism.
Against: Large government, organized religion.
Cities: Few and far between. Novy Kosmograd, the site of the ruined spaceport and current site of a major solar energy collector, is the largest, consisting of a large warren of tunnels that stretch far below the surface. Most of the population lives in small subterranean farms, evenly spread for hundreds of miles around Novy Kosmograd. Other cities are mostly transportation hubs that interconnect the small farming communities.
Industry: Farming is the largest industry, closely followed by ice mining. Farms are highly automated family-owned affairs, with the same property staying within one family for generations. This allows family property and improvements to build up, rather than being split on the death of the owner.
Military: Minimal standing army (no one to fight), and naturally no navy, with no seas. More effort has been spent on maintaining the air force and space travel.
Government: An elected body of twenty-one officals known as the Council make all nationwide decisions, while local councils make local decisions.
Heritage: Uhtunht was first settled by a group of Russians, but the Russian culture and language survived only as place-names as other groups moved in, seeking the low gravity and good tunnel-farming. After the missiles, a self-proclaimed prophet seized control of the government. His short but bloody reign instilled a hatred of theocracy in the people of Uhtunht.

Ruler: Micha
Location: Dignity
Nation: Ainar Confederation
Capital City: Ayur (Habdome beneath the Sea)
In favor of: Aquatic life, clean industries, loyality, family, arts
Against: Police state, egoism
Cities: Habdomes beneath water surface; Because of the efficiency rules for dome construction, most cities are large in size and densely populated. Nonetheless, the Ainar architecture is of great beauty, representing the soft curves and wideness of the oceans.
Industry: There are two main industries: Energy harvesting and constructions. Maintaining fully enclosed habitats requires large amounts of energy, while the population pressure is a constant strain on the few cities, so there´s a large demand for new housing.
Military: Automated submarine vessels. There´s a small police force in the habdomes, but since it´s hard to flee from there anyway and good relations are essential in the "cans" (as the citizens call their domes) there´s little crime at all.
Government: The cities form widely independent political entities, while they are secured by a network of friendship and alliance treaties. Each city will send a representative in the case of a great Assembly, which can be called by any city anytime. This will then hold counsil and act as a single government for the Ainar nation.
Heritage: The first settlers built their "biospheres" on the few land they could find. They were exposed to the harsh climate of the planet and thus in constant danger. Soon there have been projects to settle the vast oceans instead, for their water offers protection from storms while the infrastructure would still be the same (since the athmosphere isn´t breathable anyway). Cultures still detectable include a mix of European and Oceanian peoples. Though basically every nation of old earth is somehow present in the gene pool.
Living in overpopulated habitats deep beneath the sea, there´s little room for quarrels or hatred. The Ainar are opposed to cultural or genetical homogenization. Thus there is a wide variety of customs, festivals, clothing and arts of all kinds, providing distraction from the everyday life.
While there is no "money" in the classical sense, the Ainar depend on the help of each and every citizen. Whether this is in research, construction, farming, teaching, cleaning or entertaining is up to oneself, but each citizen does contribute to the society as a whole (and firmly believes in that neccessity).
After the missiles hit, communications with the other colonists on "Dignity" were cut off. The Habdomes haven´t been hit directly, but many of the power plants have been damaged or destroyed. This brought the time of darkness, as all available energy was needed to maintain life support, while lighting, electronic entertainment and communications had to be abandoned. As a direct result the Ainar have developed a rich culture and many stories, accustical instruments have been reintroduced and family life has grown in value. Now the energy production is slowly being brought up to the old levels, using "aternate" sources such as tidal power plants or storm collectors.

Ruler: Gamecube64
Location: Valour
The Empire of Zelnick
Capital: Zelnickapolis
In favor of: the emperor, clean energy, unified government, manufacturing, planes and shuttles.
opposed to: Pullution, dirty industries, extremely destructive weapons.
Cities: many small sized cities scattered around, Zelnickapolis is quite large.
Industry: Clean energy and manufacturing are the biggest industries. Geothermal, wind, solar, and nuclear are all used to some extent. Although the people of the empire hate pollution, they don't mind launching their nuclear waste into space once it starts piling up. Manufacturing is largely robotics, planes both military and commercial, and shuttles for waste launches.
Military: Mostly airforce, minial army, next to non-existant navy.
Government: Emperor, the successor is hand-picked by the current emperor. Although the empire alows quite abit of freedom and free trade, it reserves the right to seize any property without compensation. Emperor approved legal counsels deal with local problems.
Heritage: Valour was originally united under one nation, however when the missiles came communications were broken up. A young visionary, Zelnick, led the people of the empire successfully for many years, and made the reunitation of Valour an important mission. Since Zelnick there have been two other emperors and each has made progress in swallowing up more of Valour for the glory of the empire.

Ruler: Sheep
Location: Valour
Nation: Granicus Holy Public Commonwealth
Location: lowlands and highlands, vast stretches of uninhabited areas, multiple population cores.
In favor of: Adherence to the tenets of their religion.
Against: Violation of their religious tenets.
Government: Theocracy.
Society: There is a certain amount of religious freedom---non adherents are tolerated and legally protected, but keep to themselves and lack most of the opportunities and privileges afforded to believers, who make up the vast majority of the population. The religion is fairly stable, because beyond obeying the theocratic structure and pledging faith in a handful of key ideas, a fair amount of variation is accepted on the smaller points. The religions itself is a unique blend of old faiths and new ideas, and its central tenets seem natural to most brought up by them but are unattractive to most outsiders. Thus the Granicus HPC’s relation to outside powers is strained, but stable. They do not feel compelled to force their theological views on the unbelievers, whom God will damn at his leisure, but will not hesitate to come into conflict with heathens should a practical reason arise.

NPCs

Dignity (2)

Nation: United Federated States of Journey
Location: The Sea of Journey and its neighboring inlets and landmasses.
In favor of: Capitalism, prosperity, expansion, development.
Against: Powerful, centralized, or overly involved government, political dissidents, activists, radicals, or revolutionaries.
Government: Representative local and federal government.
Society: Entrepreneurial and interested in material prosperity. Value their independence and self sufficiency. Generally respectful, proud, and grudgingly generous.

Nation: Hymbaline Marches
Location: Most of this civ‘s holdings are on land, with settlements on the nearby seas, tidal marshes, and atolls.
In favor of: Duty, social order, hierarchy, prestige.
Against: Dishonorable behavior, breaking the social code.
Government: Centralized hierarchical command structure with noble aristocratic privileges.
Society: Strict class guidelines, but reasonably meritocratic. It is fairly easy, and indeed expected, for people to rise in the ranks. There are social rules and social rule on how one should break the social rules. Breaking the rules is considered very bad form unless you break them properly. Some might call their political, military, business, and social operation mechanisms corrupt and trivial; Hymbaliners consider them sophisticated and in good taste.

Valour (2)

Nation: Helicarnakken Highland Republic
Location: Centered in the continental highlands.
In favor of: Typical centrist society stuff. They are rather militarist, and a bit xenophobic, but visitors, and especially traders and businessmen, are welcome if you carefully observe their laws and customs. They are cunning, cut-throat merchants themselves; many of their economic operations are controlled by unions, guilds and cartels, which the government tries to regulate but doesn’t do very effectively. Despite this, the economic blocs are, for the time being, pretty well balanced, allowing for a high degree of economic freedom and competition. Political and Social freedoms are fairly well protected, and no one is really all that interested in curtailing them anyway.
Against: Disorderly outsiders, monopolies.
Government: Republic. Delicate balance in politics, business, and military influence.
Society: Wide variety of commercial and traditional arts and customs. Many patrons of the arts, as well as non-business-related traditional, especially local, customs.

Nation: Pueblo Union
Location: Pueblo territory has some of every terrain type on Valour
In favor of: Each other
Against: Each other
Government: Weak Authoritarian Elitist “Republic“.
Society: Pueblo contains some of the regions least damaged by the missiles, and thus has some of the oldest surviving social elements. Its comparatively good shape made it the first present civ to reassemble after the missile strikes, but it has been among the weakest and least stable since then. It was originally an alliance between several previously separate states for purposes of survival as well as taking advantage of weaker neighboring states. It is thus home to many diverse and often seemingly incompatible social and cultural elements. Lack of a sound governing structure led to the rise of military-backed regimes to maintain order. The official government has, however, never been very stable, and relies solely on its military strength to keep control. Non government authorities, exercising power by virtue of their own thuggish military or economic influence, arose to carve out their own spoils, and are often at odds, sometimes allied, with each other and the gov’t/military. Left alienated and at the mercy of both, are the people, the recruiting grounds as well as the prey for the cartels and the gov‘t.

Honour (2)

Nation: Hanabor True Dominion
Location: The Canyons, mountains, and wastelands
In favor of: ?
Against: ?
Government: ?
Society: Nobody on the outside knows much about these enigmatic settlers. They were the last group to arrive, and have been fighting some sort of prolonged civil war since the missiles started falling. More recently, the indiscriminate all-out bloodbath has turned into a more organized bloodbath, as the two sides (leastways we think there are only two) have now conveniently generated some recognizable borders by the prudent method of killing or enslaving any that oppose them within their sphere of influence.

Nation: Hanabor Down Path Separatists
Society et al.: Ditto just about everything as for the True Dominion. We don’t really know why they have it in for each other. Apparently this group is the more modern, and this deviation may have been what caused the civil war. But this faction is almost as secretive as the other, and neither will tolerate visitors, so it’s as much guesswork as anything.

Comment

Effective Economic Base (EEB) is the sum total of your society’s natural and people resources. More people or more resources will increase it, especially if both expand at an equal rate.

Economic Vigor is the general commercial health of your nation. Employment, entrepreneurship, how easy it naturally is to be a consumer or producer.

Commercial efficiency roughly represents how capitalist/laissez faire your economy is. There are some other things, like bureaucratic obstruction, factored in, but level of “free market” is the main one. Commercial efficiency effects a lot of stuff. If it is higher, it allows you to attain higher levels of Economic Vigor, lets you research faster for cheaper, allows your economy to rise and fall faster, and makes high standards of living cost more (but this is usually offset and then some by the increased revenues if you manage your economy well).

Available points are how much, at your current budget allocation, of a surplus or deficit you are running.

ECM (Environmental Cost Multiplier) is essentially the extra costs of living in a hostile environment. The lower the ECM (and negative too) the better. It makes your Living standards more or less expensive. If you abuse your environment or let it fall into disrepair ECM will increase. If you pour a lot of funds (I mean A LOT) into terraforming, ECM will decrease.

Living standard is pretty self explanatory. If you invest more resources into making a good quality of life for your citizens, they can be well off, even without a very good economy. Of course, it’ll cost you. Requires money to upkeep and upgrade.

The Military stats are also self explanatory. Bigger is better. Note that the stats are strength, not size, so a well trained but smaller army may have a higher strength rating. Requires money to upkeep and upgrade.

Espionage is espionage. Use it to perpetrate or prevent evil stuff. Requires money to upkeep and upgrade.

Military modernity: Okay, for the tech stuff the important point is that your tech level is separate from all the other factors. Thus an army of power 40 and military modernity 2200 will probably be more potent than an army of power 60 and tech 2100. No upkeep costs, but unless you occasionally modernize it your mil. modernity will gradually fall a little bit from weapons decaying in storage. Also, a war decreases it a lot unless it is upgraded, as your modern weaponry is used up.

Civil modernity: Likewise, a society that has a living standard of 13 and a civil modernity of 2400 will have more inequality and more people struggle than a society with living standard 15 and civil modernity 2200, but most people will have access to more advanced and therefore better products, services, and amenities, even if they can’t always afford them quite as well. No upkeep costs, but civil modernity will gradually decay (roughly represents infrastructure) and wars on your soil take a big toll on your CM.

Tech Cap: Neither your MM or CM may exceed your tech cap. Unlike MM and CM, your tech cap will slowly increase (after all, raw knowledge is rarely destroyed). It would take a cataclysmic event…like fiery death raining from the sky…to reduce your tech cap. Oh well. Note that you can buy an increase in your tech cap (I.e. more research) and it is cheaper with higher commercial efficiency (more automatic entrepreneurial research). You don’t get any research bonus from CE unless you buy research, but there are minor conditions (common sense ones) that will affect your automatic research rate negatively or positively. No upkeep costs.

Debt and credit are how much you owe (to your citizens, other nations) and how much you could liquidate for funds if you had to (generally in the form of treasury reserves, land). Don’t let EITHER ONE get too large, or it could hamper your economy. Typically you don’t want either one to be much more than twice your spend points per turn. I’m not even going to worry about interest at this point, but it might come later. If you are a rogue state or an authoritarian statist economy, I guess you could repudiate your debt or seize assets from your citizenry. Or precipitate a financial crisis to cause rampant inflation and pay of your debt with inflated currency. But I don’t recommend any of that, unless you like…challenges .

TOT upgrade costs are the funds required for that turn to do all the stuff you want to upgrade. The formula explains how costs are calculated. Things that cost upkeep--living standards, military, espionage, perhaps special projects--can of course be reduced by as much as you want to, but in almost every situation it is silly to reduce them beyond a certain point, because there is a limit on how much money you can save from reducing upkeep in a single turn. You may reduce any stat area and receive the amount of money equal to the cost reduction into your general coffers up to the expenditure points equal to (40*commercial efficiency modifier). Any reduction beyond this point in a single turn gives you no further refund, I.e. you must still pay the upkeep up to that minimum level. (Army, Navy, etc. are considered separate categories, each of which you may reduce up to the maximum allowed amount.)

Contentedness is how happy your people are with things. This is one of the few subjective stat areas I will evaluate by hand, I.e. based on a variety of subtle or not so subtle factors.

The PROJECTS…are project. Something like a terraforming effort or large scale settlement mission or something secret like weapons of mass destruction could be a project. Speaking of which, none of you have nukes right now, but they are not strictly disallowed, but as indicated by the introductory story your biospheres are fragile, and MAD really is MAD, and your population and generals know this, so choose wisely.

That’s the major stuff…How to make orders is below. When using the spreadsheet chart to look at your stats, there are three big things to remember: Keep an eye on your “available points” cell; the charts with the word equivalents of the stat numbers are your friends; and DO NOT screw with the formulae unless you know what you’re doing, or you might get some unexpected results when I update your stats and the math in my spreadsheet is different than what you expected.

The Rules --- What you might want to know

“How to send official orders”, or
“Stats are your friend”

Let us take, for the sake of example, appleciders’ nation.

I wish to increase my EEB. I could start a PROJECT to settle another planet, or plant another prefab colony on an unclaimed portion of my own planet, which (if successful) would guarantee an increase in EEB. But as a fledgling nation, I don’t feel like devoting that many resources to such an effort at this point. So I simply give a “general order” requiring no additional funds, that, for example, the ministry of culture is promoting the advantages of each family having 2 or 3 children, or that restrictions on mining have been eased.

I’m not happy with the state of my economy, and my commercial efficiency is high enough to allow a more vigorous economy, so once again I give a general order about more efficient local business approval boards, or allowing bids on reconstruction of a damaged hab facility. Such efforts may or may not be successful. Only fairly minor tweaks should be given in “general orders”; larger or more drastic efforts would fall into changes to Commercial Efficiency, which can change your expense structure, or Civil Modernity, which costs money to upgrade. Taking good care of your other stat areas may give your economy a chance to increase on its own. As with almost any of the stats, you could start a specific PROJECT to boost your economy, and hope the money you devote is sufficiently offset by the supposed increases in revenue.

Commercial efficiency can be changed with a general order, or it may change without you specifically asking for it to be changed because of other actions you do that indicate a change in CE. Either way, it probably won’t change at once. Say something like, “Local boards are now in charge of regulating additional taxes in order to employ more people in public works projects, and companies can no longer fire people without a board reviewed just cause.” IMORTANT NOTE: You will not have as much administrative discretion at higher CE levels! Yes, you will still get to control things, but market forces/individual decisions will take their toll on the integrity of your grand schemes, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

The Environmental Cost can be a drag. Unfortunately, it takes a ton of money to make it more favorable. Probably not worthwhile to start a PROJECT (the only way to improve EC) at this early stage when you could be spending the money in other much needed areas, but if you find yourself with some extra funds, it’s not a bad place to invest, if you’re into long term returns. Note that “irresponsible” actions can damage your EC rating (making it higher). You CAN give general orders to prevent such a thing or make it less likely.

Living standards require a “specific order” to increase. Something like “upgrade living standards to level 12” and maybe a short (1 or 2 sentence) explanation of what, more specifically, it will entail. This isn’t required, but will give me a better idea of what you’re doing. Or you could write a lot of very detailed descriptions of the What, How, and Why. Either way, when I see that specific order I will take into account 2 costs: 1) the increased upkeep, which in appleciders’ case would equal an extra 35 per turn, and is figured automatically, and the one time upgrade cost, which at (old-new/2) is 17.5, which I add to the upgrade costs column. Not that for a downgrade you don’t get a refund.

Military and espionage upgrades work exactly the same way.

Modernity and tech cap upgrades are specific orders, but have an upgrade cost only, no upkeep. Say “upkeep military modernity by 2 by giving all our soldiers better targeting sights on their guns” and BOOM! An upgrade cost of 16 (in this case) pops up in the column.

You can declare a PROJECT for any miscellaneous efforts you feel like pumping funds into. Tell me the name of the project, what it does (the more specific the better), the general timeframe (an estimate is fine), about how many credits you will end up putting into it (again estimates are okay) and of course how much, if any, money you are putting into it this turn. I will tell you if your timeframe or expenditure schedule is wildly out of synch with what you expect to get out of the project and make adjustments accordingly. You may even get a short report from your economists or generals or scientists saying what they expect the final outcome to be. Note that such a report is In Character, and not in any way a guarantee on my part. Your results may vary wildly from such IC predictions.

Contentedness can (sometimes) be improved by a project, or by just managing the other conditions in your empire in a good manner.

I then calculate how much of a surplus or deficit you are running, adjust your debt and credit accordingly, and clear the temporary fields. You can tell me whether you want surpluses to go to increasing your credit or reducing your debt and deficits to be borrowed from debts or taken from credits or whatever. Voila. And with that, your new stats will be ready.

attached to this post is the zip of the spreadsheet in excel format.

General notes on the NES

This NES will be measured in standard earth years. You may of course design your own calendar, but the updates will be for the time being at two standard year intervals.
This is at its heart a game reliant upon consensus. I ask you to respect my final rulings once they are given until (unless) they are retracted. But by all means challenge me if you think I have made a significant error! I’d much rather have a mistake be pointed out than let it persist. But with this as well as finding the mistakes in other player’s actions, sometimes it’s best to just let the little stuff slide. Ask yourself whether a mistake has a significant negative impact upon the game or your experience, and then decide whether to bring it up.
Okay, the level of modding: I want this to be a relatively low intervention NES. Give and take with your fellow players. I will update on major events, resolve disputes, et al. The general rule with updates is: If I don’t mention something that you’re doing or trying to do, assume it’s going just as you describe it. This is to keep the updates reasonably brief. I will also be experimenting with doing frequent mini-updates to keep the game moving and the major updates smaller. Official orders are due for the major updates so that I can update the stats. I will accept PMed/emailed orders if you need them to be secret, but otherwise I prefer them in the thread.
As with any NES, creativity and enthusiasm are their own reward, but may also bring additional rewards to your experience courtesy of the mod and players! (remember, being challenged is a gift ). With this NES, you have a fairly unique situation with which you can apply all sorts of things you may have wanted to try, maybe mixed with the old trusty procedures where suitable. Have fun with it, and help you fellow players and mod have fun with it also.

Comment

the system stats that are available for settlement are (I think) all updated. Under "interests" in each planet will be a list of nations (at this point the letters A through J or something) and how much of the planet they control. You can pick which one you want and start designing your fledgling empire. I've attached a screen of the relevant area of the stats, but you don't need to worry about that right now.

Elaboration on technology:

Technological potential is fairly advanced, each coutnry will have a few databases that survived the attack that contain all the theoretical data you need for advanced computers, medicine, industry, etc. However, spaceflight is still hard, you are lacking in trained engineers and technicians for that kind of thing, as you have spent the last 100 years focused almost solely on repairing the terraform upkeep devices and maintaining your damaged base environmental systems. Also, you are generally lacking in industry and materials and have limited access to some raw resources, for the same reason. But now climates are stabilizing, economies and societies have partially recovered and you can devote more resources to advancement. But you'll have to build from the ground up. In general, the tech/abilities you actually possess are no more than (and in some cases significantly less in size, number, or sophistication) the tech/infrastructure available to a country today, in the early 21st century.

Attached Files

Those walls are absent of glory as they always have been. The people of tents will inherit this land.

Comment

Ugh... I hate dial-up. Which figures, since that's what I have. I'd like to reserve nation J, and I'll work out some background and such tonight.

ECM... is that life support, more or less? Or rather the amount of your economy that must be devoted to life support? And does "viable atmosphere" mean "breathable" or simply that there's significant pressure of some gas or gases?

Aha! Microsoft Excel will open that zip file. Extensive and impressive, though I must admit I don't have a clue what most of it means.

Comment

Yes, ECM (Environmental Cost Multiplier) is essentially the extra costs of living in a hostile environment. The lower the ECM (and negative too) the better. the calculations for ECM, like most things, is automatically taken care of.

Viable atmosphere is not necessarily breathable. Indeed, none of these planets have atmospheres that could be breathable by today's humans, though some of the future's humans can. Viable simply means it could potentially support a biosphere, or at the very least hardy microbes and plantlife.

As for the stat system, which even now I feel is complex (though not overly burdensome and pretty intuitive once you get used to it): All will be explained. Ugh. Don't worry though, you really only have to understand a few parts of it, most of its seeming complexity comes from the fact that it is highly automated. So have no fear, minimal micromanaging only, but plenty of opportunity to influence all sorts of factors in a "strategic" fashion.
Must sleep.

Those walls are absent of glory as they always have been. The people of tents will inherit this land.

Comment

Users of WinXP can open both formats equally well, so I guess you´re not on such a machine? Anyway, for other purposes it might be good for you to download WinZip ( http://www.winzip.com/ SHAREWARE/unlimited ) though.